Category: Civil Rights

Radical leftist groups are tying themselves in knots again. They want freedom of expression, yet they seek to silence any speech, be it written, televised, or spoken, with which they do not agree.

Leftist groups want to be free to demonstrate on behalf of their causes. Yet they confront demonstrators with whom they disagree with threats and even physical violence. Leftist groups claim they want everyone to be free to do anything he, she or the “unassigned,” wish to do or not do. However, they are intent on beating up on Jack Phillips, the baker in Lakewood, Colorado, who was the victor in the Supreme Court case Masterpiece Bakeshop vs. Colorado Civil Rights Commission handed down on June 4, 2018.

In case you have been living under a rock and may be unfamiliar with this case, Phillips, a deeply religious Christian man, refused to create a cake especially for a gay wedding. However, he offered to sell the couple any cake that was readily available in his shop. In short, he did not discriminate, by refusing to serve the couple, he simply refused to create something that violated his core beliefs. Continue reading “Supreme Court Go-Round”→

President Trump has argued, correctly, that Nikolas Cruz should have been reported and that this information should have prevented him from buying a gun as expressed in this tweet.

“So many signs that the Florida shooter was mentally disturbed, even expelled from school for bad and erratic behavior. Neighbors and classmates knew he was a big problem. Must always report such instances to authorities, again and again.

Trump’s critics rightfully point out that he signed a law that repealed an Obama regulation that would have added an additional 75,000 people who suffer from mental illness to the national background data check. No doubt Trump would like to take that back.

The rule that was repealed specifically required that the Social Security Administration add people who have been deemed incapable of managing their financial affairs to that list. That would include many who receive disability payments due to mental illness. This would not have prevented Nikolas Cruz from obtaining all his guns, but it would have been a small step in the right direction.

The measure was part of a larger group of Obama rules that were reasonably repealed by Congress shortly after Trump took office. Yes, the repeal of the gun measure was supported by the NRA but another organization that has been largely left out of this discussion, the ACLU, was also to blame.

In a letter to Congress, the ACLU wrote: “We oppose this rule because it advances and reinforces the harmful stereotype that people with mental disabilities, a vast and diverse group of citizens, are violent,” the letter says. “There is no data to support a connection between the need for a representative payee to manage one’s Social Security disability benefits and a propensity toward gun violence.”

Obviously, if you can’t manage your money you shouldn’t be expected to manage a gun. Please! More obvious is the fact that someone who is getting SSI disability payments due to a mental illness should not have access to guns.

Let us not forget that in the 70s and 80s the ACLU was at the forefront of patient’s rights legislation and court cases that emptied our mental institutions. These cases raised the bar significantly for anyone to be committed. The courts ultimately ruled that a finding of mental illness alone was not enough to justify a state’s locking a person up against his will and keeping him indefinitely in simple custodial confinement if such persons are dangerous to no one and can live safely in freedom.

What does living safely in freedom mean? Today, for the most part, that means living on the streets. Why? Because most of the mentally ill don’t think they are mentally ill. Once out they refuse their meds and don’t go for treatment. When that happens many do become dangerous and their heartbroken families are simply afraid to keep them or take them in. Research suggests that individuals with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are responsible for approximately 10 percent of all homicides in the United States. For mass killings, the percentage is approximately 33 percent. http://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/evidence-and-research/learn-more-about/3627

Too often families are counseled to avoid having a child classified as mentally ill and schools try to keep these children in their system. Then, once that child becomes an adult, the school and the family lose control unless the now mentally ill adult voluntarily gives a parent or another adult the responsibility for his or her custody. We now know that Nikolas Cruz refused to let the school district continue providing him with the mental health services he had been receiving after he turned 18. These cases go unreported.

It’s an urban legend that we have insane people living on the streets because Ronald Reagan closed the mental hospitals. Most mental hospitals were closed simply because they no longer had any patients. Sadly, liberal organizations like the ACLU that worked to get all these mental patients released, largely abandoned society’s most vulnerable.

Many of the mental health workers who worked toward this end have admitted their mistake. Many also have admitted their over reliance on drugs. Now these drugs are part of the larger problem of those who shoot up schools or a workplace.

If you are on psychotropic drugs you cannot join the military, pilot a plane and — in some cases — even drive a car. It makes sense that people on these drugs should be ineligible to buy guns unless re-evaluated.

Politicians, the NRA and the ACLU need to accept this. My guess is the first two will come around. The ACLU is perhaps the bigger culprit and, so far, has escaped the consternation of the general public.

On March 24, students accross the country will take to the streets in the nation’s capital and elsewhere in an effort to combat violence in schools, like the kind that occurred at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, that left 17 dead and 14 wounded.

The students behind the The March for Our Lives are to be commended for their earnest desire to do something positive to protect schools, but unfortunately it appears their effort is misdirected. With anti-gun organizations like Michael Bloomberg’s Every Town for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action and providing much of the muscle to organize the event and actor George Clooney providing much of the cash, many of these students will be used as pawns by progressive groups and the usual cadre of celebrities hoping to cash in on this event.

Donald Trump went to Washington promising to drain the swamp. The swamp is winning. That’s because it is a lot more complicated than simply pulling the plug and watching the whole mess go down the drain.

No, the swamp in Washington is more like the fictional fire swamp in the movie “The Princess Bride.” Washington, like the swamp in this movie classic, has three elements: the fire (obvious), lighting sand (dryer and quicker than quicksand) and the dreaded R.O.U.S. (rodents of unusual size). Continue reading “Trump and the Fire Swamp”→

The PC police, who seem hellbent on forcing all people to accept gay marriage after the controversial Supreme Court Obergefell decision, suffered a setback when activist federal judge David Bunning released Kim Davis from a Kentucky jail. Davis, a county clerk, spent five days behind bars after refusing to have marriage licenses to same-sex couples go out under her name, which would, in effect, be condoning a practice that violates her religious beliefs.

Recently, I received an email from a former television colleague. I’ll call him Jack (not his real name). Jack lamented the recent events in Ferguson, Missouri, and invited me to read and post on his blog. It had been years since we’ve had any direct contact, but I have great respect for this man. Therefore, I went to Jack’s blog and began reading. It sickened me, so much so that I was, for one of the few times in my life, speechless.

It was one of the worst biased political rants I have ever seen.

It began with a personal story. As a young photographer, Jack covered a race riot in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., where he discovered that the local police chief had sent officers in blackface to stir up the rioters so he could crack down on them. After that, the “chief” ran for Congress as a Republican and won.

I don’t doubt Jack’s veracity. However, it was as if time has stood still for him. Therefore, he believes all Republicans (and tea party members and other conservative-leaning organizations like the Heritage Foundation) to be racist. Continue reading “Why I left the Democratic Party”→

Suddenly, it’s 1964 again. Racial tension is in the air. Cries of “injustice” and “police brutality” occupy the headlines. However, the epicenter has moved from Mississippi and Harlem to Ferguson, Missouri, a small municipality which occupies a slice of northeastern St. Louis County.

Unfortunately for the peace-loving citizens in that community, those fanning the flames which have led to the violence are stuck in 1964. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and members of the New Black Panther Party have never moved on. They are in a time warp. In fact, their relevance depends on being able to make disadvantaged blacks believe that the system is rigged against them. That’s how they get their power and earn the money to buy their expensive suits and chauffeur-driven limousines. Continue reading “Suddenly It’s 1964 Again”→